breaking down this heavyweight era and others: Why today stinks!!

You don't know the difference between 'better' and 'greater'. :nut

Wlad let his brother avenge his loses therefor he will always be a lesser fighter to all 3 .

 

Douglas beat Tyson. He was the better fighter.

Purrity beat Wlad. Purrity was better. Do you understand now.

 

He is greater than 3 nobodies yeah. One of them a journeyman.

 

Aqua, the reason the dude looks like a twat is because he...



Ah, never mind. It's almost Christmas.

 

Sanders and Brewster are the best guys he fought. Both made him look like a little boy.

Pacman fought and beat hall of famers and all time greats.

 

This is a point about your original methodology, and FWIW I care very little about the present HW division myself, though I do respect the Klits as dominant and enduring champions.

Since the Klits wouldn't fight each other and have both been well into the top 10 for most of a decade (and astride it for a large part of that time) the rankings of the guys they have faced are necessarily 1 or 2 points lower on average than they would otherwise have been.

Furthermore, by using the yearly Ring rankings an interesting anomaly occurs - the champions who lost their fights end up appearing to have had higher ranked opponents (due to their opponents ranking having risen by the following april) and the fighters who won their fights (including in the vast majority of cases the Klits) appear to have fought lower ranked opponents.

To me it doesn't really matter much either way. I'm of the general opinion that divisions with just one (or in this case two) completely dominant fighters - especially over this length of time - is going to become less interesting due to the lack of competition - regardless of the absolute (H2H) quality of those fighters.

 

Another intelligent critique by JAB, it's good to see anti Klitschko people who don't just completely ignore reality and instead use fact based arguments. Although I mostly disagree, at least with the implications. The thing I do agree with Jab about is that there is depressingly few true contender on contender fights in modern HW boxing. Blame the sanctioning bodies and change the hater fan culture where someone is immediately an unmarketable bum when they get a loss. Otherwise, it won't change. I don't think you can blame the champs much if at all for that, they can only fight the top contenders that are in front of them.

And that's where I'd completely disagree that either Wlad or Vitali have fought fewer top contenders than other eras. If you go by Ring, then yes, at least for Vitali, but I find Ring's rankings often absurd and arbitrary. Boxrec has problems, but for a modern scientific analysis of in era competitors, its much better, and Vitali's defenses have been better than Wlad's on that. Regardless, of all Vitali's and Wlad title defenses (in their most recent title runs), the only ones I had outside the top 20 at the time of the fight were Sosnowski for Vitali, and Mormeck and Pianeta for Wlad. That compares favorably with past champs, of Holyfield's 7 total successful title defenses, I had Cooper and Bean outside the top 20, of Fraziers 9 successful defenses, Zyglewicz was way outside the top 20, maybe the worst title defense in HW history, Daniels and Stander outside the top 20, and of Ali's last run of 10 successful title defense, Wepner, Coopman, Evangelista and Dunn were outside the top 20, some egregiously outside. Obviously they also defended against competitors who were better in their era than the K's opponents are for their era, but for consistency, they are at least as good. Marciano, Holmes, and Tyson are the only champs who never defended against someone I rated below the top 20.

Also, I'm not clear how Jab's contender rankings are awarded. For instance, Peter and Sanders were #2 or 3 per Ring when Vitali fought him, I know that was altered somehow based on other fighters they face? But the methodology isn't clear to me.

 

so Wlad didn't avenge his losses in the way Lewis immediately did , I will take your ignoring that remark and turning desperately to irrelevancies about other boxers as confirmation that's I'm right.

all good.